16 March 2006

I can't get blogger to work tonight. Grrr.

Good golly Miss Molly! I am impressed with the quantity and quality of the entries to the BlogHer DeLurking contest (just comment to be entered, and every comment (one per post) is a new entry, so keep commenting). My little raffle box on top of the fridge is filling up.

It just created one problem: now I have so many great blogs by wonderful, funny, wise, inspiring women bookmarked that I may have to quit my job to have time to read them (I can't read blogs at work because they are blocked! Does the IT security department know me, or what?).

I have been preoccupied lately, so this is going to be a brain-dump kind of post without a real plotline (oh, yeah, like there is ever a plotline). But I promise there will be some good links along the way, so stay with me.

1. Any Da Ali G Show fans out there? Knowing how sick and twisted y'all are (I've SEEN your profiles! Interests: "Having sex and pissing people off." Funny!) there HAVE to be some of you.

Last night I was part of a test audience for the new movie "Borat - the Movie." I may have sworn away my rights to write about it on that form they give you, but I can't remember. I can't take the time to read everything I sign, yeesh.

One of the joys of living in my area - close to movie studios, but just far enough away so they think we are part of average America - is that we get to act as test audiences a lot. Guys stand around the mall, handing out free screening passes to whomever they think fits the target demographic.

Then you show up an hour before the show and get wrangled by lots of young adults with complicated hairstyles. They are all dressed in black and carrying walkie-talkies, cell phones, and blackberries. It is like formal night at MacWorld.

Then you fill out papers with your demographic information, stand in line, maybe get picked for a focus group, get searched in case of video cameras and phones, wait some more, have a guy apologize for the quality of the print/sound/editing/lack of titles, and then watch a movie.

Meanwhile your every move is being recorded by people with digital video cameras in front of the theater and some huge shotgun mics too.

At the end you fill out another form (How was the pacing? What were your favorite scenes? Least favorite? Which characters did you like best?) and, if you are in the focus group, get asked a bunch of questions by a high-energy guy with uber-cool glasses and hair gelled into an unnatural shape.

By then you have been there four hours, so you collect some free movie passes and go home.

"Borat" was much, much funnier than I expected. In fact I was fully anticipating major suckage, but the thing was, at the risk of sounding like Jeffrey Lyons, a real laugh riot.

The character Borat is a Kazakh TV reporter who comes to the U.S., not knowing our customs, and bumbles his way across the country, making offensive remarks and pissing off everyone he meets. He manages to meet and cross the boundaries of feminists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, cowboys, gays, African-Americans, gun owners, politicians, and Pamela Anderson. All good fun.

Offensive, yes, gross, oh yeah, but you already know about my brain, which basically works like that of a fifteen year old boy.

This will be the movie of the summer for teen boys. Prepare to hear them saying "Very nice" in a faux-Kazakh accent about a million times, because it is coming.

2. In case you're thinking you're an introvert (clue: your best friends are all in your computer), go check out this article from The Atlantic Monthly that I found on Kottke the other day. I love how it explains introversion. It manages to include subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at extroverts, because if you're going to feel like a social misfit, you might as well justify it by having a snarky, superior attitude.

I'm not making fun. I am a big introvert from way back (as a toddler I used to hide in the hall closet because I lived in a family of five kids and two adults in a tiny three-bedroom house (one of the bedrooms was the garage)). My co-workers want to go to lunch with me and I'm like "Why?" If it weren't for the internet, I might have 65 cats. Introvert, born and bred.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Borat, and Ali G. I love the one where ... wait, I love all of them. Seriously I think my favorite Borat episode is the one where he goes to that etiquette school with all the old souther ladies. So hilarious. And my fave Ali G I think is where he interviews Buzz Aldrin. Seriously, how did he get anybody to go along with that? Sasha Coen is his real name and he has like some crazy degree from some really prestigious university. Whodda thunk?

Yes, Mrsfortune, the Buzz Aldrin thing is a classic in my mind too: "When you went to the moon, was the moon people friendly?"

"Thank You for Smoking" sounds fabulous, too.

The problem with the screenings is that you are there forever with all the lining up, searching etc. If you see a good movie, it's ok, but if the movie sucks then it really sucks.

Blogger did suck exceedingly. It took me hours and many tries to post that stupid post, and then it finally just appeared at random a day later. Guess that's what I get for being too cheap ass to spend $7 a month on typepad LOL

Who the frig are Borat and Ali G? I swear to GOD I actually live on the same planet as everyone else but some things just don't make it onto my teeny, tiny radar screen that is clearly better suited to detecting crappy diapers.

I'm not an extrovert, I just play one on my computer. Okay, maybe not totally true. I have been known to swing both ways...har har.

Geez, I'm just babbling away here. Probably because I haven't been on my computer all day and because Blogger really sucked ass all day Friday.